January 12, 2011

The sort of young men of Muslim backgrounds who commit this sort of crime are certainly not acting out any religious or cultural imperative. Rather, they are cherry-picking whatever cultural influences serve their purposes in the worst way. The rebellious sociopathy of the gang lifestyle; the lure of easy sex and cheap titillation that abounds in Western countries. These things of course are totally at odds with the culture of Pakistan, Lebanon or any other traditional country. Yet by channelling that traditional perspective of female morality, and victimising only those they view as degraded and cheap, it becomes that much easier to justify.

The only thing I would say is that the author underestimates the widespread and pervasive justification of the exploitation and dehumanization of the Other baked-into-the-cake of most human societies. Both Muslims and Christians traditionally enjoined bans upon the enslavement of co-religionists, but not of unbelievers. Terms like “sociopathy” can be slippery. As I have noted before, soldiers are not murderers in the eyes of most cultures, because they kill the Other. Similarly, sexual exploitation of dehumanized groups may not even be sociopathic, because the reference for sociopathy is based on in group morality.